Doug Marrone: "We have to be that type of team"

Bills head coach Doug Marrone addresses the media after the team's 27-20 loss to the Jets.

Buffalo Bills Head Coach Doug Marrone, 9.22

Opening Statement…

(I give) credit to the Jets. They did a good job. They came out early, they got a couple of big third downs on us, made some big plays. We were able to move the ball at times early on, but they scored touchdowns and we kicked field goals. That got us behind a little bit. We were behind a little bit in third-down percentage early on. I thought that we came back, defense started to play well, we were able to get the game to 20-20. And at the end of the day, we weren’t able to make that play to get us over the hump and they did. And they wound up winning. Credit to them. They went out there and won that game.

It’s hard for me because I have really, really high expectations for him. I say that all the time. I think a lot of us, even some of our veteran players, including us (the coaches), we’re all continuing to get better. They’re a good defense. They’ve done a nice job. Did we miss some things out there? Could we have done a better job? Absolutely.

On not having answers for the Jets’ defensive pressure…

Early on, fourth-and-two, they did a nice job. They came with SAM and WILL and dropped the guys underneath. They had a good call versus that. Later on, it was basically zero (blitz) a couple of times. Then, we just needed to make a play and put the ball where our receivers could get it. We’ve just got to keep working on it and get better at it. That’s really as simple as it is. There are answers to it. We said prior to the game that we were going to have to make some big plays, they force you to do that, and we weren’t able to.

On the Bills dealing with injuries in this game…

Hey, the next guy up, but it did take us out of one or two packages. Obviously, we had to move Aaron (Williams) over there, put Jimmy (Leonhard) back there at safety with (Da’Norris) Searcy. It’s an area, basically, at that point, you have your two starting corners out and Jairus (Byrd) is out for the game. So, you’ve got three good football players that aren’t on the field. Those other guys have done a good job. At times tonight, they weren’t able to make those plays that they made before in the last two weeks.

I don’t think Justin was any cause of, “Oh my gosh, here they go”. I think going into it, they’re lining up, they’re taking shots. Leodis (McKelvin) before that, everybody’s going after our secondary and we just have to do a good job. We’re trying to change things up for them coverage-wise and pressure and do that to try to keep the quarterback thinking. But hey, when they bring the pressure, block them all up. They went one-on-one and it’s just a point of we didn’t make those plays.

On the team’s injuries…

Leodis, a hamstring, he didn’t come back. Marcell (Dareus), an ankle, he didn’t come back. (C.J.) Spiller, a knee, he didn’t come back. And (Alex) Carrington, a knee, he did not come back.

On the level of concern with those injuries…

For me, I don’t really have a lot of time. What happens is, after the game, I come in, I kind of take a quick view of the stats. I usually meet with the quarterback, just telling you the truth. Then, I address the whole team. Then, I see Doug (Whaley). And then really, Scott (Berchtold) brings me out the injuries. So, I really don’t know until the doctors are able to really evaluate unless they said something beforehand, which they haven’t.

On Mario Williams being on the sidelines for much of the fourth quarter…

I saw him getting work, but nobody really came up to me. I know that at one point, we were down a couple of defensive linemen. I remember on the phones, (Anthony Weaver) was like, “Hey, we’re down to one,” and we were going to put (Jamaal) Westerman in there, saying to play the big end.

On how the inability to run the ball impacted Manuel…

They’re tough. Credit to them again. They give up 2.4 yards a rush. We gave up a lot of rushing yards. They had like almost 182, and I think we had 100 and small change (120). When you have that type of inability and we were trying to stay with it. Obviously, that hurts in what we want to try to get accomplished. They did a good job. They had two guys on the outside. They did some good things. We were able to hit a couple, but we weren’t able to sustain that type of offense throughout the game. And then we got caught where we had to throw it and make up some points.

On running the ball on early downs and whether he was being careful with Manuel…

No, actually, when you go into the red zone, there are certain points where they play coverage. Our point is, hey, if they’re going to play coverage and make sure we don’t get the touchdown, we’d like to try to be able to run the ball. And I think when you do that as a team, when you’re able to do that and run the ball in there, when you look at all the majority of the offenses that are best in the red zone at the end of this year, eight out of 10 will be able to run the football down there. So, that was our plan going in there. It wasn’t necessarily to protect EJ.

On returning to New York as a head coach…

I’m more concerned about the team and everything that’s going on right now, going back to work and cleaning this thing up. Getting better and just keep fighting. That’s what I basically told the team. We’re going to have to be that type of team, where we have to get up every day and we have to rely on each other and just keep fighting our way and just keep fighting to get into these games. We played three games, we did some good things, we’ve done some bad things. But in all three games, we’ve given ourselves the ability to be in a position to tie or win a game. And we just got to keep working to get over that hump despite what maybe anybody else may say or think.

On how Manuel responded to the Jets’ defensive pressure…

We expected it. He expected it. It’s not like he didn’t., I think we tried to do some things. We made mistakes. It’s not just the quarterback and I think we can all understand that. We had some protection breakdowns. We had some things that we weren’t able to get open on. Don’t get me wrong, sometimes I do wish I could say, “Hey, it’s just one thing”, but there are a couple of things that we just need to keep working on and get better at.

On whether he feels the team is thin in the secondary…

I do. I think I’ll be looking forward to seeing what the doctors say, where we’re at, what’s going on and seeing what we can do to better our situation back there, whether we have to change maybe some of our philosophies and what we’re trying to get done. And we’ll have all of those discussions and what we’ll do is we’ll take the players that we have and do the best job we can to put them in position to help our football team.